


A Decent Education - Snapshots

by seeminglyincurablesentimentality (myinnerchildisbored)



Series: Rose and Tommy - Bonus Material [5]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:48:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23342752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myinnerchildisbored/pseuds/seeminglyincurablesentimentality
Summary: For the prompt: "More stories of Rosie in school..."
Series: Rose and Tommy - Bonus Material [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1602865
Comments: 54
Kudos: 67





	1. Shoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imaginaryjess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginaryjess/gifts).



> We all need an extra serving of fairy floss in this clusterfuck. I think some short, sweet snacks are in order. 
> 
> In this first one, Rose is in grade one, so about six.

Missis Bell was infamous. Her reputation reached far beyond the gates of the Saltley primary school, where even the gruffest of the gruff trembled to hear her name. Mention of Missis Bell was enough to pull anyone in line, even the likes of Richard McGarrigal and he was as old as Finn and didn’t give a fuck about anything.   
  
It was said that Missis Bell could break as many as three fingers on a child’s hand with one stroke of her ruler. Rose had heard tell that, one time, Missis Bell chucked a piece of chalk at a girl by the name of Susan Thomas with so much force, it went straight through Susan’s forehead, embedded into her brain and killed her. And, apparently – Finn said so, in fact it was the last thing he said to Rose before he left her at the door of her classroom on her first day of school – Missis Bell had once left a boy standing in the corner for so long that he starved to death.   
  
Why anyone had thought it a good idea to put Missis Bell in charge of first grade was a mystery.

#

“D’you like school, Rosie?”  
  
It’d been weeks, the first term was nearly over, when Tommy finally thought to ask. Rose looked up from the bit off rock she was attempting to sharpen on the corner of he back wall.   
  
“It’s hair-raising,” she said after a bit of thought.  
  
“Eh?”  
  
“It’s orright.”  
  
“Yea?”  
  
“Yea.”  
  
Rose watched her Tommy wander off, shaking his head a bit, and went back to working on her blade. It was just as well that he hadn’t asked her to explain, he wouldn’t have understood, she didn’t think he would.  
  
There wasn’t a way to properly explain that being in Missis Bell’s class was as brilliant as it was terrifying. It was like being in a film, a really exciting one, with a very good, very dangerous baddie. So long as you weren’t on the receiving end of Missis Bell’s wrath, it was grand theatre to watch her go off.

#

“D’you know why she’s called Missis Bell?” Rose asked.  
  
“ ‘cause it’s her bloody name?” Alice asked back.  
  
“Why, Rosie?” asked James.  
  
“ ‘cause she’s hard as cast iron and she’s a huge pair of steel balls.”  
  
They roared; James laughed so hard he fell off the wall. Rose grinned. She’d got the joke off Finn and his mates, but no one needed to know. 

  
It was funny, but it was also true. Missis Bell _was_ a hard woman and she’d balls to rival any man in Small Heath.

#

Rose was kneeling by the cold fireplace in the front room, scraping soot into an empty can to use for gun powder in the great war after the dinner, when Tommy came through from the shop.   
  
“Orright?” Rose asked without looking round.  
  
“I’d a strange thing happen to me just now,” Tommy announced.   
  
“Yea?”  
  
“I’m getting in the car out the front of the pub,” he went on, “when a woman comes over and asks me: Is this your motor, Mister Shelby? Odd. Why d’you ask? I ask her. And d’you know what she said, Rosie?”  
  
“Nah. What’d she say?”  
  
“She says: Because you’d think a man, who can buy himself a nice motor like that, might spare the money to buy his child a pair of shoes.”  
  
“Eh?” Rose’s face settled somewhere between a frown and a grin.  
  
“Exactly,” Tommy said with a shake of his head. “So then, of course, I ask her what she’s talking about and turns out it’s your woman, Missis Bell, from the school. Tells me I   
should be ashamed of myself for putting frivolities like motor cars before a decent pair of boots for me daughter.”  
  
Even as her eyes widened and her mouth became a perfect, silent ‘o’, Rose had to admire Missis Bell.   
  
“Can you stand up, please, Rosie?”  
  
Rose got to her feet and eyed Tommy uncertainly. He let his eyes wander downwards until they came to rest on her nearly unscuffed lace up boots.   
  
“Huh,” he said. “That’s what I thought. That’s what I told her, your Missis Bell, I told her you’ve a perfectly fine pair of shoes and that I’d be very surprised if your aunt let you walk out the door barefoot in the mornings. - You can sit back down, chavi, I just wanted to see that I wasn’t going mad. - And then, d’you know what she told me?”  
  
“Dunno,” Rose said automatically.  
  
“She told me you come to the school without shoes every other day, not _every_ day, mind, just every _other_ day. And when she asks about it, you’ve nothin’ to say for yourself but ‘dunno’; but that at least you take your cuts for it without complaining.”  
  
For a moment, Rose felt oddly flattered.   
  
“So,” Tommy said.   
  
“So?” Rose echoed.  
  
“Rose.”  
  
She sighed.  
  
“Spit it out, I haven’t all day.”  
  
“Orright…” Rose rolled her eyes. “We’ve been takin’ turns.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Me and Alice,” she explained. “ ‘cause Alice doesn’t have any, not right now, she doesn’t.”  
  
Tommy just looked at her.  
  
“It’s not fair for Alice to get whacked every day,” Rose said. “It ain’t her fault her mum’s no money. And-“ she was getting fiery now, Rosie, “- it’s ‘specially not fair, cause their William’s got shoes, cause he needs them for work, and then their Martin gets them after him and he just flogs them til they’re dead and then Alice gets nothin’. And-“  
  
“You’ve been taking turn wearing your shoes? With Alice?”  
  
“Yea.”  
  
“Bloody hell, Rosie-“  
  
“Only ‘cause it’s not fair,” she interrupted. “We’re only doin’ it ‘cause it’s not fair. It isn’t. So, you can’t-“  
  
“Are you tellin’ me what I can and can’t do?” Tommy said, eyebrows nearly at his hairline. "When you've already made a show of me?"  
  
“D’you think it’s fair?” Rose was holding his stare remarkably well.  
  
“No. But few things are.” Tommy sat down and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Whack you every time you’ve not got your shoes, does she? Missis Bell.”  
  
“Yea.”  
  
“Doesn’t hurt?”  
  
“Yea, it does.”  
  
They sat quietly for a while, Tommy finding and lighting a cigarette, Rose rolling her tin of gun powder absentmindedly between her hands.   
  
“Does Alice fit your boots?” Tommy asked suddenly.  
  
“Just…” Rose looked up at him. “They’re a bit big on me, but she’s bigger feet.”  
  
“Right.” Tommy flung the half-finished smoke into the fire place. “Come on.”  
  
“To where?” Rose asked suspiciously.  
  
“Up the road.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“So you can show the lady in the shop your shoes.” Tommy got up and put on his cap. “So we can get pair a size up and you and Alice can stop being daft and getting whacked.”  
  
“Yea?”  
  
“Come on.”  
  
Rose jumped up so quickly, she spilled gun powder all the way down her dress.  
  
“You’re a walking disaster, my little love.”  
  
“Da?” Rose brushed herself off, not improving the state of her dress at all, and jogged after him towards the door. “D’you know why Missis Bell’s called Missis Bell?”  
  
  
  
  



	2. Midway

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is quite a leap forwards from the last chapter. Rose is eighteen - so it's, what, 1933? - and schooling is taking on a whole other dimension.

The trouble with the patriarchy – well, there were of course a great many troubles with the patriarchy, really – was that whenever Rose thought the bastards could no longer top their crowning achievements in being, well, bastards, the bastard patriarchy managed to surprise her.   
  
“What’s this?”  
  
Her father dropped at letter onto her plate, right into the egg yolk she’d been saving for her last bit of toast. Poor start to the day.  
  
Rose glanced up at her father coolly, before carefully lifting the letter out of her breakfast, making a point to shake it out briskly, as though it was a newspaper, and splattering orange droplets over the white table cloth. Her heart gave a lurch at the crest on the letterhead; she had to force herself to read slowly and carefully, skimming not so much as a comma. It was like drinking hot mulled wine on a freezing winter day, Rose’s whole being flooded with pleasure. She bit the inside of her cheeks to keep her face in check.   
  
“D’you open me mail now?” she asked, not looking up.   
  
“Was addressed to me,” Tommy said.  
  
“Why?” Rose asked tersely.   
  
Above her, her father huffed an impatient breath.   
  
“ ‘cause I’m the head of the household, Rosie,” he said.   
  
“That’s ridiculous.” Rose smoothed the letter out on the table. “This ‘s nothing to do with you.”  
  
“Ridiculous, eh?”   
  
She was still avoiding looking at her father, but she imagined she could hear a crack of vertebrae as he cocked his head, tearing his tense shoulders in half.   
  
“I tell you what’s ridiculous,” he went on, his voice still dangerously level. “This-“ he reached over and tapped the third line from the top “-this is ridiculous.”  
  
“You-“ Rose started.  
  
“What is it? _Ow-_ ”  
  
Both Rose and Tommy looked up sharply, briefly startled to find Ruby, Charlie and Lizzie staring back at them. Ruby was rubbing her ribs, Charlie was rearranging his elbow inconspicuously.   
  
“What’d you do?” Ruby asked with undisguised glee at this unexpected breakfast excitement.   
  
“I got accepted at the university,” Rose said and now, saying it out loud, she’d no hope to keep the grin off her face.   
  
“Oh.” Ruby was no better at disguising disappointment than she was with glee.   
  
“Really?” Lizzie put her cup down and raised an eyebrow at Rose.   
  
“Yea,” Rose said, her lips stretched to the limit now and still her smile was growing. “Really.”  
  
“But-“ Lizzie was looking back and forth between Rose and Tommy, her face somewhere between a smile and a frown “-but that’s good news. That’s great-”  
  
“Did you know about this?” Tommy rounded on her.   
  
“What are you talking about?” Lizzie asked, exasperated. “You’ve been going on about this for months, Tommy, you’ve been riding her about it non-bloody-stop. I’d’ve thought you’d be pleased-”  
  
It was true. There hadn’t been a week in the last year when Rose’s father hadn’t reminded her that failure was not an option when it came to tertiary education. That he’d take it as a personal insult if her marks weren’t well above the cut. Come hell or high water, Rose was going to go to university; the first in the family to do so.   
  
“No,” Tommy cut Lizzie off. “I’m not pleased. I’m not fuckin’ pleased-”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because she’s been given a chance and she’s pissed it away, having a fuckin’ laugh!“   
  
Tommy brought his fist down on the table so hard, the cups gave a little jump.  
  
“I’m not havin’ a laugh,” Rose snapped.   
  
“Fuckin’ _philosophy_?” her father shouted.   
  
“Yea,” Rose shouted back. “What’s wrong with that?”  
  
“Oh, there’s nothing _wrong_ with it…” Her father glared at her, his jaw working furiously. “It’d have to an actual thing for there to be anything wrong with it…”  
  
“It is-“  
  
“You wasting three years of your time and my money to become an even bigger smartarse than you already are, is what it is,” Tommy cut her off. “To turn into some useless   
gobshite-“  
  
“Useless?” Rose sounded a little shriller than she’d intended. “There’s no such thing as useless or useful if-“  
  
“Lawyers are useful,” her father growled.   
  
“Yea, if you’re a criminal, they are,” she shot back.   
  
“Doctors,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “Accountants. Engineers. All useful.”  
  
“Gardeners,” Rose said. “Cooks and farmers and dustmen. They’re useful, as well, and you need no university at all for that.”  
  
“Well, you take your pick then, my little love,” Tommy said menacingly. “A decent education or a solid, honest trade. You’ll be useful one way or the other, your choice. But I ain’t paying for you to sit around pondering the human fuckin’ condition.”  
  
He turned and marched off before Rose could get her face back under control. Fuck. She could have smacked herself.  
  
“Well, played, “ Lizzie said drily from the other side of the table.   
  
“I didn’t…” Rose’s voice trailed of and she let her forehead drop onto the table with a groan.   
  
“Now, I’ve a hard time writing a single sentence without getting the spelling wrong somewhere in it,” Lizzie said. “But even I know that you don’t get into it with a man when you need him on side.”  
  
“Yea, well, looks like my decent education ain’t half as useful as your tricks of the trade, eh?” Rose said without lifting her head.   
  
She listened to Lizzie push back her chair, toss her napkin down and leave the room without another word.   
  
“Why’s she mad?” Charlie asked, bewildered.   
  
“You fuck off, as well,” Rose growled from beneath her crossed arms, feeling the thick paper of her acceptance letter rub against her nose as she did.

#

Rose drove into town, fully intending to get roaring drunk with Alice and Helen, before she remembered that neither of them had a half-day this Saturday and neither of them would be particularly sympathetic to the woes she had to drown. Alice had been cut enough when Rose told them she’d be sitting the entrance exam; she hadn’t said anything, Alice, but Rose could tell from the set of her face that she’d been biting the inside of her cheeks raw trying to keep any bitchiness at bay.   
  
Alice was much cleverer that Rose, always had been, and if Alice had been dealt a different hand, there would have been no doubt of her making it into university and soaring all the way through. As it were, Alice had been taken out of school as soon as was allowed, and had been grinding her teeth through a series of service positions before she’d clawed her way up behind a switchboard. Rose, who’d copied her homework off Alice every time they’d attended the same school, going off to study had to be the ultimate insult to Alice; and that she was making an effort to not let Rose know was as touching as it was depressing.   
  
Helen would have nodded and make noises at all the right places, because Helen couldn’t bear anyone’s unhappinesses but her own, but it would have made Rose feel as ashamed as Alice’s anger, if not more so.   
  
There was nothing for it; Rose would have to get roaring drunk on her own.

#

The shipyard was bustling, there was no way she was going to get into the shed with the bottles unnoticed. Finn’s was locked. Rose had some money, but not enough to sponsor a proper piss-up. She’d counted on nicking booze from the stores. Bollocks.   
  
Wandering through the streets, wondering how to proceed, she arrived outside the family pub nearly without meaning to.   
  
The place was empty, it was too early in the day. There was a new lad behind the bar, when Rose cautiously peered through window. She’d been hoping to find the bar unattended, Mister Johnson out the back dealing with deliveries; but this was perhaps even better. She sauntered into the pub and up to the bar as though she did it every day. The lad raised an eyebrow at her.   
  
“How old are you?” he asked.   
  
“What’s it to you?” Rose asked back.   
  
“Well, I suppose it’s a drink you’re wanting,” he said with a grin. “But I’ve neither milk nor fuckin’ lemonade, so, bugger off.”  
  
“That’s orright,” Rose smiled back. “’cause I don’t want any milk or fuckin’ lemonade.”  
  
The lad’s grin became wider still, reaching his eyes and everything.  
  
“Good try,” he said. “C’mon, off you fuck.”  
  
Rose pulled up a barstool and propped her elbows on the counter.   
  
“Suit yourself,” the lad said, going back to polishing the pint glasses. “But once there’s trade, won’t be a single bloke in here, who won’t take you for a whore and treat you like it.”  
  
“They’re welcome to try,” Rose said pleasantly.   
  
“Wouldn’t be too far off, I imagine,” he lad said, less pleasantly.   
  
Rose laughed.   
  
“What’s funny?”  
  
“You’ve no idea, who me father is, do you?”  
  
“I don’t give a fuck.”  
  
“Ah, but you do.” Rose wiped the corner of her eye. “Now, give I’ll have a gin. The one with me name on it, if I may.”  
  
“Is your name fuckin’ Gordon?”   
  
“Nah,” Rose said, surprised how deeply she was relishing this. “It’s fuckin’ Shelby.”  
  
The face on him.

#

By the time the first actual customer came in, Rose’s barstool had already turned into an ambling pony beneath her. She got a few looks, odd ones, but they left her to it. They were men coming off the factory shift, they weren’t the whoring kind, not in broad daylight anyway. So she stayed on her stool, steadied herself against the bar and wiggled her empty glass for a refill. The gin had long stopped tasting foul. It’d stopped tasting of anything. It just went down, warm and slightly viscous, coating her insides.   
The lad came with the bottle whenever Rose raised her glass. He wasn’t chatty, not anymore. He had his hands full now, admittedly, as the place was slowly filling up. Soldiered on quite valiantly, Rose thought, all on his own behind the long counter.   
  
The place was fairly hopping now, it was Friday and the afternoon was getting on and people had been paid and were ready to unload some of the spoils of their week; so the lad’s face fell with relief when Mister Johnson came striding in from out the back, rolling up his sleeve and tucking a cloth into his waistband.   
  
“Sorry, Jackie,” he said briskly. “Got held up. What’ve we got-“  
  
His eyes fell on Rose.  
  
“Evenin’, Mister Johnson…” it was remarkable how hard it was to get the words out.   
  
“Are you…” Mister Johnson’s voice drifted off and he turned to stare at the lad. “Have you…”  
  
“What?” Jackie asked nervously.   
  
“Are you…” Mister Johnson came back round to Rose, “…are you drunk, Miss Shelby?”  
  
“Notatall,” she managed.  
  
“Have you been _serving_ her?” Mister Johnson asked incredulous, rounding on the lad once more.  
  
“ ‘course I have,” he said. “You don’t say no to the Shelbys, you said-“  
  
“Ah, Jesus, you thick bloody…fuckin’ hell, Jackie…” Mister Johnson was rubbing his neck, scowling. “Orright…”  
  
He grabbed Jackie by the shoulder and said something Rose didn’t catch, then shoved him away roughly. The lad took an unsteady step, frowned and disappeared through the   
back door. Rose felt a twinge of guilt. It didn’t seem fair that he should get the sack just because she was feeling sorry for herself.   
  
Perhaps it’d be best to have a word with Mister Johnson, let him know she’d mislead the lad, taken advantage of his being new. If she managed to keep herself from slurring, he’d maybe even listen to her, Mister Johnson. Alas, he was all the way down at the other end of the bar. Rose went to take a sip and found her glass empty. Bugger. There was probably little chance of Mister Johnson providing her with a refill. Which probably meant it was high time to go.  
  
Rose slid off the bar stool and found the ground as soft as an old mattress. The room gave a brisk spin and settled around her.   
  
“Oh dear,” Rose muttered, suddenly overcome by giggles.   
  
“D’you want another, Miss Shelby?”  
  
She turned slowly, giving Mister Johnson a look of genuine surprise.   
  
“Yea?” she ventured cautiously.   
  
“You sit,” Mister Johnson said. “I’ll be there in a moment.”  
  
Rose climbed back onto the stool, balanced, rested her elbows and settled in to wait. It was nice to know that there were still members of the patriarchy able to dish out surprises of the good kind.

#

The drink never came. Mister Johnson didn’t make it to Rose’s end of the counter, he was about halfway by the time her father came marching in. Parted the crowd like Moses did the Red Sea, he did; like he was walking surrounded by an army of ghosts, jostling the living out of the way ahead of him.   
  
He caught Mister Johnson’s eye and, when Rose followed his gaze, she didn’t miss Mister Johnson’s subtle little nod in her direction. Her father replied with the faintest jerk of the head; and Rose felt like the biggest eejit alive. He’d not sacked the lad, he’d sent him off to dob her in.   
  
The fuckin’ patriarchy.   
  
She tried to brace herself, she only had three steps time to do it. She was swaying on top of her stool, like when she’d been a kid up on the thinnest branches of a tree that would hold her. She’d expected him to stop, order her to look at him and give her the stare; but her father never broke stride. Rose was off the stool and moving towards the back door. Tommy had his arm around her, in a way that seemed oddly affectionate, save for the fingers digging into the flesh above her elbow. Rose’s legs were unsteady, her feet kept slipping even though the ground was dry.   
  
“Come on,” her father growled when her knees threatened to buckle as all equilibrium deserted her.   
  
“I am…” Rose mumbled and a moment later the cool afternoon air hit her in the face, making her dizzier yet.   
  
“ ‘d you drive in?” Tommy demanded, never slowing as he marched her along the back alley towards the mouth of the main street.   
  
Rose nodded.  
  
“Where’s the motor?”  
  
“By the yard.” Rose managed a couple of great gulps of air.   
  
They veered off to the left, down another back way, turned right and right again, until Tommy wrenched open a door in the wall with his free hand and heaved her through like   
she was a sack of robbed coal.   
  
They were in the old kitchen, Rose realised; it shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but she’d lost all sense of direction it seemed. The place was quiet, no footfalls hammering from the upstairs, only a soft murmur of business coming from the old shop three walls away.   
  
“Sit.”  
  
There was no need to tell her twice. Rose crumbled onto a kitchen chair, went to prop her elbows on the table, misjudged the distance and whacked her forehead on the table’s edge.   
  
“Jesus Christ…” her father muttered behind her.   
  
Lifting her head was too much of an effort. Rose listened to him bang around behind her, opening cupboards, turning on the tap, the clinking of spoons.   
  
“Up,” he ordered after a while and – when Rose found herself unable to comply – pulled her upright by the back of her jumper.   
  
He put a warm glass in her hands.  
  
“Bottoms up,” he said. “All of it now.”  
  
Fuck it. Rose tilted the glass, fully intending to drain it; she made it about halfway before the taste caught up with her – salt water – and she gagged so violently, she nearly dropped the glass. She doubled over, her stomach roaring with outrage at this injustice. She had just enough time to register, with some surprise, that an empty soup pot had been placed between her feet, before everything she’d drunk in the last few hours came surging up with unstoppable force. It didn’t quite fill the pot, but it was still impressive. Disgusting as well. There were quite some bits from breakfast floating in the viscous solution of gin and salt water.   
  
“Fuck…” she groaned, righting herself, leaning back into the chair and rubbing her face.  
  
“Better?” Tommy asked quietly.   
  
“Yea.”  
  
It was true. The room was much steadier around her, the fog inside her head had lifted. She felt awful, admittedly, like she’d had her insides scraped with a butter knife; but it   
was still better than before. At least she could hear her own thoughts now.   
  
“The state of you.”   
  
Rose looked up and was met with that unrelenting stare that haunted every memory of every childhood fuck up. She heaved a breath and winced when the smell from the pot hit her nostrils. Tommy took a lid from the bench top and passed it over; she took it gladly, covering up her shame.   
  
“D’you have any idea-“ her father started.  
  
“Please, let me study,” Rose blurted.  
  
He was taken aback. She shut him right up; if only for a second.   
  
“I will if it’s something worthwhile,” he said.   
  
“But who’s to say?” Her mouth was running away from her. “And…how? How can you say it ain’t when you’ve got books from every Greek who’s ever lived? You know it’s interesting, you _know_.”  
  
“Interesting doesn’t put food on the table.”  
  
“There’s food on the table,” Rose groaned. “It’s fuckin’ laden-“  
  
“That doesn’t mean it’s no concern of yours,” Tommy snapped. “It doesn’t mean you’ve been fuckin’ excused from making a contribution.”  
  
“To the family business?”   
  
She hadn’t meant to put that much contempt in her voice, she truly hadn’t; she was a bit shocked by the sheer venom dripping off every syllable.   
  
“Yes, Rose. To the family business,” her father said with quiet menace.  
  
“Orright,” Rose heard herself say. “How’s this then: you let me study what I like and I’ll spend every spare second murdering our enemies or whoring myself out to our allies, whatever’s more _useful.”_  
  
For a moment she was certain he’d slap her. There was tightening in his shoulders, like he was about to pounce, and Rose forced herself not to flinch in anticipation. But then all he did was pull out a chair, sit and stare dully at the scraggly vase of flowers on the table.   
  
“You know,” he said after a long, uncomfortable silence, “it’s funny. In a way. Worrying about you-“  
  
“You don’t,” Rose interrupted. “You don’t _worry_ about me.”  
  
“Perhaps not as much as other men worry for their daughters,” he conceded. “But I do. That you’ll loose you temper at the wrong time and get your big mouth burst. That some boy will treat you badly. I used to worry you might off our Charlie, when you were young. I’ve worried about you fallin’ off horses. About harm coming to you through no fault of your own…”   
  
Rose was staring at him, her mouth slightly open, her hand suddenly numb.  
  
“How’s that funny?” she asked hoarsely.  
  
Her father looked up and there was real contempt in his eyes.   
  
“ ‘cause not once did I worry that you’d turn out spoiled.” He regarded her, coolly, his face perfectly still, set to utter disdain. “That I’d have to sit you down and explain to you that life’s not to be frittered away on fuckin’ frivolities. That it’s not about how easy you can have it.”  
  
It was like he’d shot her. Straight in the heart. Shattering her ribs.   
  
The rest of the bile inside Rose gave a quick, desperate surge, but she kept it down. There was a fine sheen of sweat on her face, she could feel it, and a hot pricking behind her eyes.   
  
“It ain’t-“ she cleared her throat, swallowed down a lump and tried again “- it ain’t frivolous. And…it ain’t easy.”  
  
“Is it not?”  
  
“No.”   
  
There was interest now, breaking through the pain and the disappointment; Rose could see it flickering, faintly. He was waiting for her to go on.   
  
“It makes you look,” she said quietly. “Really, really look and then question everything you think you can see. Whether all the things we think we know are anything close to the real thing. Whether anything we do, anything we feel…” she trailed off, bracing herself for a sharp retort that never came, “…whether it’s actually coming from us ourselves or if it’s just what we’ve been taught. Or if we’re just telling ourselves stories so we can go on. It’s-“ she let out a shaky breath “-it’s about seeing yourself as you really are…and that’s not easy.”  
  
For a while the only sound in the room was the faint bark of a dog drifting from the outside.   
  
“And what good’ll that do?” A tiny crease had appeared between her father’s brows, a tiny softening in his frozen features. “What’ll you be once it’s done?”  
  
“Dunno…” Rose shrugged. “Free…maybe…”  
  
Tommy leaned back, his arms and hands suddenly awkward and dangling. He opened his mouth but there was nothing.   
  
“I can’t become a lawyer, I can’t,” Rose told his knees in barely more than a whisper. “I know it’s what you want, but I can’t. Or a doctor. I can’t…” she ground her teeth and barreled onwards “…me own life is enough…”  
  
“There’s other things, my little love,” her father rasped. “You’ll join the business as a-“  
  
“I’m not,” she said.   
  
“Rose-“  
  
“I’m not.”   
  
She forced herself to look up, lock eyes with him, hold his gaze with all its questions. Waiting for her to tell him why, to explain herself.  
  
“I can’t.”  
  
It was remarkable how hard it was to get the words out; how much the pain in his face, no matter how brief the slip, was hurting her. It was orright. Better than telling him there wasn’t a way she’d keep feeding the beast.   
  
“Orright.”  
  
She couldn’t believe it. Her ears were playing up, she was still drunk. It wasn’t possible.   
  
“Yea?” she asked faintly.  
  
“Yea,” her father said, a comforting sarcastic edge creeping back into his tone. “I can’t force you to join the bloody business, chavi.”  
  
Rose could feel a smile starting to tug on the corners of her mouth quite insistently.   
  
“Thank-“  
  
“But-“ Tommy held up a hand “- I also can’t justify spending company money on you wasting your time. At university. Or at home.”  
  
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise. It didn’t, not really.  
  
“Fair enough,” Rose said slowly.   
  
“Yea?” She’d surprised him, maybe, a little.  
  
“Yea,” Rose said.   
  
They leaned back into their respective chairs, Tommy smoked a cigarette, Rose watched its mist travel across the kitchen. It was funny, in a way, that the last door she’d opened with the Shelby name had led her here of all places.

#

Perhaps he’d thought she’d cave. Rose couldn’t be sure.   
  
Tommy didn’t bat an eye when she told him Alice had gotten her a seat at the switchboard; and, a months later, when Rose announced that they’d found a room Sparkhill, he didn’t raise any objections. He might have, had she asked him for money; but there was no need. They’d pay the rent between them, Rose and Alice. Food was no concern, Billy’s da had put a kitchen in the backroom of their pub a year ago, with Billy in charge of the frying. And even if she never ate again, Rose was not going to ask her father for as much as a coin for a cob.   
  
Perhaps she’d thought he’d cave. She couldn’t be sure.

#

  
  
“You off?”   
  
Rose was lugging her suitcase down the grand staircase, followed by a decidedly morose Charlie and Ruby. Her father was in the entry hall, rifling through the morning post on his way out.   
  
“Yea.”   
  
“D’you want a lift?”  
  
“Yea, orright.”  
  
He’d offered. She wasn’t asking. He took the suitcase off her. It made her want to cry. It took him ages to store it in the back of the motor.  
  
They didn’t talk much on the way, barely at all. It was strange, driving away from the big house; no matter how shite a place it was. Rose had spent so many years wishing herself back in the crammed surroundings of the city, the comfort of a narrow mattress in a room rustling with peeling wallpaper, that the pang of farewell took her by surprise. That said, as soon as the tall, pockmarked façade of her new home came into view, there was no room left inside Rose for anything but wild excitement.  
  
“Very nice,” her father said drily, glancing up to the second story windows. “Up there, eh?”  
  
“Yea.”  
  
“Not much of a view.”  
  
“We’ll cope,” Rose said with a smile.   
  
She could feel her father watching her as she got out, wrenched open the back and dragged her suitcase out.   
  
“Thanks for the lift,” she said, once she was on the pavement, rooting through her pockets for the key.   
  
“You’re orright,” Tommy said. “I’ll see ye, eh?”  
  
“Yea,” Rose said with a smirk. “For fuckin’ Sunday lunch.”  
  
“And church before.” Her father’s face was perfectly serious.  
  
“Will we have time for a nice walk after?” Rose asked.  
  
“So long as it doesn’t rain,” Tommy said, a tiny twitch working the corner of his right eye.  
  
“Wouldn’t want to ruin me Sunday best.”  
  
“Yea, that’d be dreadful,” her father said gravely.  
  
Rose barely suppressed a snort.   
  
“Orright?” Tommy asked.  
  
“Yea, orright.”  
  
He pulled away from the curb with no warning at all and was gone.

#

  
  
Rose found her key. She climbed the stairs, jiggled about with the lock until the door sprang open. There was a note from Alice, stuck to the splintery door of a kitchen   
cupboard. _Back round 6. Left bed’s mine. Build us a table, if you can._   
  
Rose walked through to the bedroom, put her suitcase on the right-hand bed, the one under the window, the one that would get all the breeze and the best of the street’s night time songs. The locks of her suitcase clicked noisily in the empty room.  
  
She lifted the lid, idly wondering if she’d anything in there that she might use as a curtain, a girl wanted a sleep in of a weekend after all…there was a book on top of her   
bunched up clothes, a book Rose didn’t remember packing. A book she didn’t remember ever seeing before. _The Problems of Philosophy_ , by Bertrand Russel. It wasn’t in good condition. The spine was cracked, the edges yellowing, the cover stained in places. Battle-worn, that’s what it was.   
  
Rose shoved her suitcase out of the way, sat down on the saggy mattress. She was still reading when Alice came in hours later; but at least she wasn’t sobbing anymore.   
  
  



End file.
